Political Science/Comparative Politics

Hi, I attached the pdf.
It need to be finished by October 7th Wednesday 10 :00Pm(EST)

POL IT ICAL SC IENCE POLS 1611 · COMPARAT IVE POL IT ICS FALL 2020 Exam One Due Wed, Oct 07, 11:59pm Instructions This exam has three sections: Section A: Concepts [24%], Section B: Short Answers [24%], and Section C: Fun (?) and Games [52%], for a total of 100%. Answer four (4) questions in section A, two (2) questions in section B, and ALL questions in section C. Ensure that all answers are in your own words. That is, do not quote from any source. Good luck! Section A. Concepts [4 × 6 points = 24 points] Answer 4 questions. Be clear and concise. If you can answer the question in two or three sentences, do so. 1. What is falsifiability and why is it important to the scientific enterprise? 2. What does it mean for an actor to be rational? Give an example of irrationality. 3. “A Nash equilibrium is an outcome in which all players receive their most preferred outcome.” Is this statement true or false? Explain. 4. In what ways is a (social) scientific theory like a map? 5. What is a state and how does it differ from a government and a regime? 6. What is modernization theory? How does it differ from the survival story? 7. Briefly describe Dahl’s two dimensions of polyarchy. 8. What is a social contract, and what dilemma does it help solve? 9. What is the credible commitment or time-inconsistency problem? Give an example. Bonus [1 point]. Barrington Moore Jr., in his classic work Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship, writes one of the most well-known lines in political science: “No bourgeoisie, no democracy (1966:418).” Rewrite this line in terms of necessary and/or sufficient conditions. 1 POL IT ICAL SC IENCE POLS 1611 · COMPARAT IVE POL IT ICS FALL 2020 Section B. Short Answers [2 × 12 points = 24 points] Answer 2 questions. Good answers should be at least a paragraph long (or roughly half a page). Be sure to answer all parts of a question. 1. Describe Weber’s three forms of political legitimacy. Is one of them more associated with the modern state than others? Why or why not? 2. Charles Tilly, in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, writes “War made the state, and the state made war (1975:42).” What does this mean? What implications does this have for states which formed later, such as those in the post-WWII period? 3. According to the variant of modernization theory we discussed in class, why did England (in early modern Europe) develop a limited form of government while France remained an absolutist and autocratic form of government? What implications does this theory have for understanding why some countries remain dictatorships today? 4. Robert Putman, in Making Democracy Work (and subsequently, Bowling Alone), argues that social capital is important for the quality and performance of democracy. Social capital captures “norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement (1993:167)”, and in this regard, is similar to Almond and Verba’s (1965) concept of civic culture. What is civic culture and how is it measured? How does civic culture relate to democracy? 5. If a state can use force against its citizens and can use this coercive ability to demand that its citizens provide it with as much revenue as it chooses, why wouldn’t a state act in such a predatory manner? How does this view of the state differ from the contractarian view of the state? Bonus [3 points] Both the contractarian and predatory views of the state emphasize a security dilemma. How does this dilemma differ between the two views? 2 POL IT ICAL SC IENCE POLS 1611 · COMPARAT IVE POL IT ICS FALL 2020 Section C. Fun (?) and Games [52 points] Answer ALL questions Show your work, and be sure to answer all parts of a question. 1. Suppose we want to test the following hypothesis: Citizens in democracies have more civil rights than citizens in dictatorships. If we want our hypothesis to be falsifiable, would it matter whether we used Freedom House or the Democracy-Dictatorship Index to measure regime type? Why or why not? In your answer, be sure to identify the measure you would use. [5 points] 2. Consider the following argument. Major premise. If Catholicism is antithetical to democracy, then Catholic countries are more likely to be dictatorships than democracies. Minor premise. Catholic countries today are more likely to be democracies than dictatorships. Conclusion. Therefore, Catholicism is compatible with democracy. (a) What form of categorical syllogism is this? [3 points] (b) Is this a valid or invalid argument? [3 points] 3. Some political scientists argue that democracy can be sustained only if citizens can coordinate their beliefs about (a) what types of government actions are unacceptable and (b) when they ought to take action against the government. Countries in which citizens have coordinated their beliefs on these matters might be said to be characterized by a “democratic culture.” Let’s analyze a Coordination and Democracy Game inspired by Weingast (1997) to explore this argument further. Our Coordination and Democracy Game has three actors—a state S, and two groups of citizens, A and B. The state must decide whether to transgress or not. If the state decides to transgress, then the two groups of citizens, A and B, must simultaneously decide whether to acquiesce to the state’s transgression or challenge it. Only if both citizen groups coordinate on challenging the state will their challenge be successful. Figure 1 shows the normal-form representation of the Coordination and Democracy game. 3 POL IT ICAL SC IENCE POLS 1611 · COMPARAT IVE POL IT ICS FALL 2020 Group A Group B acquiesce challenge acquiesce 2, 2 2, 1 challenge 1, 2 7, 7 Figure 1: Group A and Group B decide if they are in sync in the Coordination and Democracy game (a) Solve the strategic form game in Figure 1 for any (pure strategy) Nash equilibria. [7 points] (b) How does the Coordination and Democracy Game help illustrate the notion that the coordination of beliefs between different groups in society might be considered a “democratic culture”—something that is necessary for democracy to emerge and survive? [5 points] (c) Some political scientists believe that democracy is hard to sustain in countries that are characterized by a large number of ethnic or cultural groups. How does the Coordination and Democracy game you have just examined help to explain why this might be the case? [5 points] 4. The following scenario will probably be familiar to anyone who watches Law and Order, TV’s longest-running crime series (cue ‘dun dun’ sound). As many of you are probably aware, however, certain types of criminals in the real world rarely talk or rat out their accomplices. In particular, it is well known that members of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra rarely provide incriminating evidence against their accomplices. Why is this? The answer is that the Mafia organization imposes a cost (c), often physical and deadly, on anyone who talks to the police. This additional cost changes the structure of the strategic situation in which the two prisoners find themselves. Rather than playing the traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, we can think that the prisoners are playing a Mafia Game like the one in Figure 1. Falcone Maroni quiet talk quiet 30, 30 10, 40 − c talk 40 − c, 10 20 − c, 20 − c Figure 2: Falcone and Maroni Got Caught (a) Solve the game in Figure 2 for any (pure strategy) Nash equilibria assuming that c = 0. What type of game does this resemble? [7 points] 4 POL IT ICAL SC IENCE POLS 1611 · COMPARAT IVE POL IT ICS FALL 2020 (b) Given the payoffs in the Mafia Game, what is the minimum cost, c, that the Mafia needs to impose on members who talk in order for the Nash equilibrium to be (quiet; quiet)? Explain your answer, and be sure to show your work. [7 points] (c) The role of the Mafia can be thought of as that of a third-party enforcer. What do we mean by that? How is the role that the Mafia plays in this game related to the role that the state plays in the Civil Society game we examined in class? [5 points] 5. Backstory (not necessary to answer the questions). You and your friend T are sitting around on an unseasonably warm autumn evening. T says, “It’s a good night to play matching pennies—too warm for anything more strenuous.” T explains the rules of matching pennies. You each flip fair pennies simultaneously. There are four possible outcomes: You both get heads. you both get tails, T gets heads while you get tails, or T gets tails while you get heads. If the coins match, T wins them both; if the coins disagree, you win them both. The game will continue until you run out of pennies, but you have lots and lots of pennies. This sounds like a stupid game, but T is right—it is too warm for anything more strenuous. Halfway through the game, T decides that it’s too warm to play such a stupid game without any stakes, and offers a suggestion: “Just to spice things up, let’s up the stakes,” he says, “If I get tails and you get heads, I’ll give you $3. If I get heads and you get tails, I’ll give you $1. When we match, you give me $2 to make it even.” Figure 3 shows the game that you and T are playing. You T heads tails heads −2, 2 3, −3 tails 1, −1 −2, 2 Figure 3: T’s Stupid Game on a Warm Autumn Evening Identify any (pure strategy) Nash equilibria in the game. [5 points] 5 POL IT ICAL SC IENCE POLS 1611 · COMPARAT IVE POL IT ICS FALL 2020 Bonus [1 point]. The most important thing you learned so far is: (a) Claims that explain everything, explain nothing. (b) Comparative politics is about evidence, not anecdotes. And flux capacitors. (c) Game theory is all about references to movies that no one watches anymore. (d) The professor’s pandemic hairstyle is getting out of control. (e) I don’t need no charity point. HAPPY FALL! 6